First of all, if you're reading this the day it goes live, enjoy the Dern vs Rodriguez card that is this afternoon. The most hype in the combat sports world today will be surrounding the heavyweight boxing matchup between Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury, which I am really looking forward to. I chose not to write about it because I honestly just don't have much insight to offer on the topic. Admittedly, I don't know as much about boxing as I do MMA and even then, this fight has had so much coverage from so many people, most of which are both more talented and more insightful than I am, that anything I said would have already been covered way more effectively by someone else anyways. I will just be enjoying this one as a fan and unless there's something unforeseen, probably won't be writing about it afterwards.
Anyways, I mentioned in my post about the scheduling of Ngannou vs Gane and Oliveira vs Poirier that I would probably be making posts on the outlook of both the heavyweight and lightweight divisions. I figured that on a day where heavyweight boxing is in the news cycle, the UFC's heavyweight division would make for a good topic. In this post, I'm just sort of trying to see what the division has to offer in both the short and long term. This will be done mostly in terms of who could and should be fighting for the title, but also considering what fights can be made just to have some fun matchups and the overall health of the division. At some point or another, I'll probably do this for every weight class, this one just happens to be first. Maybe I'll go in reverse order of weight since I started with the top, but who knows. In fact, let me know what you guys want next in the comments. Should I just jump around or go in descending order? Fair warning: this one might be on the longer side so get your snacks and beverage ready.
Let's start at the top. The top three in the heavyweight division are pretty self explanatory and I'm not going to spend too much time on them. Francis Ngannou, Cyril Gane, and Stipe Miocic are the elite of the heavyweights right now. Ngannou is the most powerful, Gane is the most athletic, and Stipe is the greatest to ever do it in a UFC octagon. I don't see any of these three being more than a fight or two away from their next title shot anytime in the foreseeable future. Stipe is 39 years old now and I expect him to wait and get the winner of the Ngannou vs Gane unification bout. Stipe probably doesn't have a ton of fights left in his career, but that doesn't mean he's washed up by any means. I just don't think at 39, with a young daughter and a newborn son, he will have much interest in non title fights. If Stipe doesn't recapture his title in that fight against the Ngannou/Gane winner, I think that could be it for him. However, I wouldn't completely rule out him finishing the trilogy with Francis (if Gane were to win the title from Francis in January then beat Stipe in his first defense) or having a massive one off fight with Jon Jones, but we'll get into him later. To the surprise of some, Francis is already 35 years old, but he's a little bit of a special case. While his age suggests this may be his last run before he really starts to age out of the sport, you have to consider his timeline. 35 may be the end of the title window for most MMA fighters, especially in the UFC, Francis hasn't been fighting for all that long. Most fighters by this time have been professionals for 10-15 years and have dozens of fights under their belt, not to mention a potential lifetime of fighting before ever reaching a professional organization (such as the path of Jorge Masvidal and the Diaz brothers amongst so many others). Francis didn't have this experience as he started fighting professionally much later in his life (his first pro fight coming at 27 years old). Francis doesn't have the wear and tear that you would typically see from a fighter his age, which I think will see him be able to hold his current level a little longer than you would typically see. The same can be said for his January challenger Cyril Gane, who at 31 years old, is only 10 fights and 3 years into his professional MMA career. Gane displays tremendous athleticism and movement in the cage as well as a better all around skillset than most heavyweights. The level that Gane can reach has really yet to be seen as his experience in the cage and practicing MMA in general is so limited, that he is improving significantly between each and every fight. If he is good enough to capture UFC gold in a little over 3 years of training, the sky really is the limit for how good he could be in another 3 years.
The next guy get's a category all to himself. This is none other than Jon Jones himself. If I were to strictly be considering in cage abilities, he would have been included in with the fighters above. Unfortunately for everyone honestly, there is an out of the cage element that needs to be considered. As a talent, Jon is as good if not better than anyone else who has ever done it. Obviously we've never seen him at heavyweight, but I have no real reason to think he wouldn't be able to compete given his reach. According to a lot of people who were at the Hall of Fame ceremonies, he also looked to be in fantastic shape with his added size. However, it's everything else that really drags down any conversation involving Jones. His reckless and dangerous behaviors outside of the cage have turned off a lot of fans over the years and his latest incident after the aforementioned Hall of Fame ceremonies were the last straw for a lot of his remaining fan base. I won't rehash all of the details here, but I just hope that his fiance and kids are safe. While he's not the best guy in the world and not someone I would really want to hang out with, I do hope Jon can turn it around, just for his own sake. I hate to see anyone struggle with their demons this badly and hope that he can somehow find peace in his life. I feel like I shouldn't have to say this, but I will just to be clear, Jon isn't the victim here and shouldn't be treated as such, but I will still be sad that his life turned out this way. I will be especially sad for those who are the real victims of his actions and hope that everyone involved can get to a point where they can find some degree of happiness. With all that said, I don't really consider Jon to be a part of the present or future of the division because so much of his career is up in the air at this time. Whether he wanted to fight or not was a point of debate for the last year or so and that was before any of the events from a few weeks ago transpired. Now the pending legal problems will have to be taken care before we even get back to the point we were at a month ago. Jon would obviously be a great talent and a huge name to inject into the division, but at what cost from a PR perspective? I think we all know that if he ever fights again, it will be with the UFC, but even after all the time I've had to process it, I'm still not sure how I would feel about it.
Now that the Jon Jones stuff is out of the way, we can go back to having fun and speculating about what the future holds. The next tier of fighters is what I would call the "solid veteran" tier. These fighters are tough to beat for anyone below them, but at the same time, have had trouble really elevating themselves into the elite tier. I wouldn't be shocked to see some of them in a title fight at some point due to the overall shallowness and age of the weight class, but some things would have to go right for them to get there. The best fighter in this tier for me is Curtis Blaydes. Blaydes, in my mind, has all of the talent necessary to be a legitimate contender in this division. His calling card is his tremendous offensive wrestling ability that he uses to control his opponents for most of any fight he is in. Sometimes he is too content with just holding his opponents down and not inflicting much damage, but he has gotten a lot better at using his ground and pound more recently. I think adding submissions to his game would go a long way towards making him a more legitimate threat to the champion. He's not the best kick boxer in the world, but he's solid enough and with good power, that's really all he needs in order to set up his takedowns. His biggest weakness right now is his chin and that could really prevent him from ever taking that next step. It is so hard in the heavyweight division to put together a long string of victories when you can be prone to the knockout. I really feel like this goes without saying, but I mean no disrespect to Curtis Blaydes. If I got hit on the chin even once by Ben Askren I would probably be knocked out cold so, definitely not implying I could do any better and Curtis is one of my personal favorite fighters. Next in this division is Derrick Lewis. Lewis just got an interim title shot, so it will probably be awhile for him if he ever gets another real chance at the belt and given his age, I'm not sure another opportunity is all that likely. That doesn't mean this is the end for Lewis as heavyweights can definitely hang on longer than most other weight classes and it's not like there's endless options for title opportunities so another run is not impossible for him. I think his biggest draw back is his style. Lewis is very reliant on his massive one punch power and fighting with the hopes of dropping a guy with one shot and then finishing him on the floor if necessary makes it so hard to put together long stretches of wins, even when you have power like Lewis has. Given that Lewis just had his shot, he's going to have to go to the back of the line and fight his way through a lot of young, tough competition in order to get back, but I won't rule him out just yet. Alexander Volkov also finds himself in this tier for me. Given his age, I think it is possible that Volkov can still make enough improvements in his game to make a run towards the top. However, I kind of see Volkov as the "gate keeper" of the division right now and I know that term comes with a negative connotation, but I don't think it has to be that way. Volkov currently sits at 5 in the rankings and I think that's probably the perfect spot for him. He would be the betting underdog against anyone ranked ahead of him and would be the betting favorite against almost everyone ranked beneath him (I think there might be 1 or 2 exceptions). I think calling Volkov the heavyweight gate keeper is just sort of the reality of the situation right now. That's not to say he can't improve and eventually get beyond that, but he just hasn't done it yet. For anyone to move into true title contention, they would have to get through Volkov and I don't think that's any easy task at all and wouldn't pick many to do it in the current landscape. The final guy in this tier for me is Jairzinho Rozenstruik. I think I look at Jairzinho basically the same way I do Volkov, I just think Volkov is a little better. Rozenstruik has good kick boxing skills, but whenever we've seen him against really high level opponents, he seems too content to stand and be a counter striker, which hasn't worked out for him. It hasn't got him too many wins and has resulted in some less than exciting fights, which hasn't gotten him any fan support either. Whenever he's fought other fighters that are either ranked or perceived to be beneath him, he's been more aggressive and has used his power to get finishes (see his fights against JDS and Augusto Sakai). I wouldn't give up on Rozenstruik's title hopes yet, but he has some work to do to get into that tier.
The final tier that I'll do a fighter by fighter breakdown for is what I'll call the "rising stars" tier. The first guy in this tier is Chris Daukaus. Daukaus is already 32, so maybe not as young as you would expect a rising star to be, but in terms of experience, he's not overly experienced and he's already in the top 10 with 4 UFC fights under his belt. He has only made it to the second round once, in his last fight against Shamil Abdurakhimov, and even then Abdurakhimov was dropped at the end of the first round and saved by the horn before being knocked out in the second. We do have to see more from Daukaus including how he looks when the fights get into the 2nd and 3rd (and eventually 4th and 5th) rounds as well as what his wrestling and ground games look like, but if he keeps knocking everyone out like this, none of that will matter. Those other things will determine how far he will actually rise, but he's already shown enough to enter the top 10 and has a huge opportunity against Derrick Lewis his next time out. I can't really even say Daukaus's cardio and grappling are negatives for him, just that we haven't seen him do it to this point. I really look forward to seeing how high he can climb. The second and final fighter that I put in this class is Tom Aspinall. This one probably doesn't come as too much of a surprise to anyone as he is a name a lot of people throw out there when discussing the next wave of contenders at heavyweight. Aspinall has shown extreme skill, power, and explosiveness both on the feet and on the ground. It doesn't seem like Aspinall has any obvious weak points in his skill set, it's just a matter of how polished and effective he can be against the guys at the very top. He's finished all of his UFC fights (3 by KO/TKO, 1 by submission) and is only 28 years old. I see no reason Aspinall won't be at or near the top of the division for some time.
I won't go through each guy from here on, but I do have a couple more tiers that I would like to mention. This first one I'll call "fan pleasers" or "fan favorites". These guys probably won't have careers that will be hall of fame worthy or rise to a title shot, but at the same time, they're the people's champions. These guys are out there to put on a show and entertain. My personal favorite in this category is Tai Tuivasa, I can admit that he's not best fighter in the world, but I can't help but smile and get excited every time he is on the card. Other guys in this tier are Greg Hardy (if you can block out his outside of the cage life), Walt Harris, and former champion Andrei Arlovski. Also, depending where you look, Ovince St. Preux is listed as a heavyweight and his next fight is against Phillipe Lins who has fought at heavyweight for 3 years consecutively now, so I guess I have to consider him a heavyweight and as such, he falls into this category for me.
The final category is the "prospects" or maybe "projects". These are fighters who have long term potential, but need to continue to improve and develop in order to achieve their goals in the UFC. Obviously everyone in the UFC has talent and potential but there's really only 2 guys who really stand out in this tier for me. Unfortunately for them, given the shallow nature of the division, they may be put into bigger fights sooner than they really should be, but they will have to learn on the fly if they want to reach the top. These fighters are Alexander Romanov, who is fighting today (the original release date of this post) and Tanner Boser. In my opinion, these guys stand out as being among the best younger heavyweights who haven't gotten into the rankings just yet. Like I said, they're not ready for a title push or really big fights within the rankings just yet, but with another win or two for each, I think they start seeing some fighters in the 10-15 range and we will see where they can go from there.
Hopefully that wasn't too long and kept your attention. I'm sure you're at least marginally interested in my opinion or you wouldn't have clicked, but this type of post are the one's that really are about the feedback. Do you think I misplaced anybody? Did I leave someone off completely that you would've included? Do you have a completely new tier that I should have used? Most importantly, who is your favorite heavyweight? Answer any or all of my questions and I'll be sure to interact with everyone in the comments. Thanks for reading and let me know if you like these longer posts with more detail.
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